The Suicide and the Leaving
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: A follow-up to 'I never wanted for this to happen'. Hikari takes her life and Shinji and Asuka leave Tokyo-3.


Creation began on 05-27-09

Creation ended on 05-30-09

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Suicide and the Leaving

A/N: An independent follow-up to "I never wanted for this to happen". Surely, you know already who it revolves around. Let's do this!

Making up an excuse that she was sick so she could skip school today, Hikari Horaki lied in her bedroom, depressed over the loss of Toji. She had found out through her father, who was working at the time of the…incident when he found out. And after discovering who and what caused the death, she collapsed into a sea of despair. She really liked the school jockey and was proud of why he even chose to be a pilot for the Evangelion: Simply to see that his only sister got better medicare care because she hadn't recovered from her injuries ever since the first Angel attack on the city, when Shinji had shown up and fought it. But that desire was turned away from with his death. She went to the hospital to see if his sister had found out about the incident, only to discover that she had died in her sleep…but she thought otherwise when she saw a woman with not-so-blond hair and a mole on her face leave the room prior to her walking in. She had her suspicions, and since the girl's brother was dead, with people seemingly dying more and more every other day, what was one more death to anybody that didn't know her well?

_I can't go on like this,_ she thought bitterly, contemplating what she had decided to do now. _If he's no longer around, there's no reason to continue any further with living. Maybe I'll see them on the other side._

While her father and sisters were out for the day, she went to the bathroom and took a bottle of sleeping pills and counted how many were left in there, counting twenty-seven. Because she didn't want to end with pain, a painless death was preferable. She took the pills and tossed the bottle away into the garbage, returned to her room with a cup of warm milk and slowly took a few pills at a time, accepting death as a means to escape the harsh world. And since her family wouldn't be back until eight, she'd be long gone by the time they returned. All they'd find would be a note that partially explained why she decided to kill herself.

_I'm sorry, all, but I can't stand being alive, anymore,_ she thought for the final time as she swallowed the last few pills and lied down in her bed, falling into a peaceful, dreamless slumber.

-

"…And after I tried to get to notice me again, she tried to strangle me," Asuka told Shinji, having accompanied him wilderness around Tokyo-3, as they sat around a small campfire as the night came, two hours after the Angel of Might left. "It wasn't until the very next day that I found her body."

"My mother wanted me to see the Eva she was working on," Shinji tod her, "about how bright the future was supposed to be. All I can really ever recall is the alarms going off, the scent of blood and oil, and a giant, hideous face that reminds me of the Eva. That was when my mother died…or whatever it was that happened to her. That man, without so much as a care, leaving me alone at my uncle's place. There was no happiness there, just like there's no happiness in Tokyo-3."

"I couldn't stand my mother's former husband's family, either. My stepmother never tried to get to know me, even when she had multiple opportunities to even try. And now that I think about it, it seemed all everybody seemed to do was just work, with the ideas of family life as an irrelevant thing to worry about. People with kids but not paying any attention to them."

"I guess that's one of the few things that everybody has in common. Asuka?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for staying with me."

"Don't mention it. After everything that's happen, there's only one thing in that dump of a city, and neither of us want to go back to it. Tell me what you know about him that I don't know from your experience with him."

"Who? Toji?"

"Yeah."

"He… He cared about his sister greatly… Had a slight crush on Misato every now and then… Could always be seen playing sports around the schoolyard, and was pretty much the only person in his family that ever made time to see his sister at the hospital. When we first met, he detested me when the class found out I…was an Eva pilot, and he beat me up for the injuries his sister got. He'd probably kill me if she were dead…and I'd probably be grateful for that. After the Fourth Angel attack, we became friends after he saw how much I suffered. He actually wanted me to hit him when I chose not to leave the city after that incident, but I chose to rather have him owe me one, which he eventually did when I embarrassed him in front of the girls."

"Heh-heh-heh." Asuka snickered. "I probably would've definitely liked him. Hikari definitely liked him a lot enough to try and get his affections."

Shinji then yawned, signifying that he was at the end of his stamina for the day and retired to his makeshift tent. Asuka stayed out a while longer before she retired to hers.

_Of all the people she had to fall for, it had to be him,_ she thought, wondering what was going through Hikari's mind at this time. _If I ever go back to that city, I'll be sure to console her over this._

-

But she never got the chance when she found out through Misato that her best friend had committed suicide. With the very person she wanted to protect no longer among the living, she didn't want to continue piloting the Eva and fighting the Angels, and left to some other part of the world that was unaffected by the war with the Angels and did not have any NERV site: They had fled to a part of China that seemed to be more peaceful than Japan ever was or really wanted to be. She was in the same boat as Shinji, losing people due to an organization that was solely interested in getting rid of bizarre creatures that didn't make any sense, and wanted to bury the darker parts of their pasts and start fresh.

_I really did hate the stooge, _she thought, repeatedly and silently, over the last few years of their time in China, _but of the many things I'd want from him, his death was never one of them. Maybe to see him leave the city, to live alone, lose a limb, maybe, but never his end._

The two former Eva pilots never left each other for more than a day at a time ever since they left Japan, and not many people that didn't know a thing about them question who they were, simply concluding that they were just runaways that wanted to take their lives back from those that tried to take them. Since Asuka was already out of college, it didn't trouble her to find steady employment in one of the planet's most difficult jobs, that of a senator for the UN, wanting to do something that seemed more helpful than originally piloting a giant cyborg that caused nothing but grief, while Shinji still had to complete his schooling and, eventually, finding his own calling in two jobs. NERV or any other organization never did try to find them after NERV was disbanded, and they had hoped it stayed that way, not wanting to have anything more to do with a war that wasn't their concern, anymore. During their time in China, they eventually settled into a romantic relationship, getting past each other's flaws and problems, and got married a few years later. They still grieved over their dead friends, not even forgetting or forgiving the people that drew them to their deaths, and Gendo, who went missing, was one of them.

The End.

Whenever people do try to think about it, one of the only real murderers of Evangelion other than the military is Gendo Ikari, that disgraceful bastard. Review, please. Peace out!


End file.
